Affiliate marketing refers to the promotion of products or services through affiliates. Find out about the two types of affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing refers to the promotion of products or services through
affiliates. Affiliates are usually other webmasters and ezine editors who
choose to act as sales people on behalf of their principals for a commission
on every sale.

There are mainly two types of affiliate marketing programs: the one-tier
program and the two-tier programs. In one-tier programs the affiliate earns
on a per referral basis and cannot recruit sub-affiliates to assist. In
two tier programs not only the affiliate earns from his/her direct referrals
but also gets a percentage commission from referrals by co-affiliates who
join the program through him/her. It is also possible to have multi-tier
affiliate programs but these are not yet prevalent.

If you are an online entrepreneur or marketer and you have your own website
then you can also promote your business and increase your sales through
affiliate marketing. You will need an attractive and genuine product plus
credible sales copy plus the appropriate software to set up an affiliate
marketing program. Set out the program’s terms and conditions,frequently
asked questions and online registration form and post them on your site
and let prospects read and be able to join if they are satisfied with your
affiliate program.

Apart from providing details about your affiliate marketing program on
your website you need to send out the word out there that you have a lucrative
and working program. Of course you could advertise in ezines or through
ezine ad networks and high traffic websites. You will also need to register
your program with affiliate program directories and networks such as www.associateprograms.com
and www.comissionjunction.com so that prospects searching for new opportunities
can find yours. You could also write reviews and articles and post them
in free articles databases and request editors to publish them in your ezine.

If you have no products of your own and no website but want to earn money
marketing affiliate programs you can set yourself up and succeed as an affiliate
marketing. You would have to learn the ropes of online marketing and invest
time, money and efforts to earn legitimate income from promoting other people’s
products.

You can look for a products in high demand, register as an affiliate and
start promoting the products using various marketing strategies. How do
you know what is in high demand and what can be a successful product to
market could be found mainly through considered research. It is generally
accepted that information products such as ebooks, special reports, etc
sell well on the internet. To discover what particular infoproducts are
suitable for you, conduct some research at online marketing forums such
as www.warriorforum.com and www.ablake.com. You can read existing messages
already posted there and ask questions to find out more. You can also search
at affiliate program network sites such as www.commissionjunction.com, www.associateprograms.com,
www.clicbank.com and www.google.com.

To assist you select the most appropriate affiliate program here are further
tips:

The product must be genuine and legal so that you do not encounter legal
problems.

The minimum payout should not be too high to make you wait for too long
for the paycheck or to struggle too much to send referrals.

The product should not be too new as to make prospects tarry in making
the buying decision or too old that almost everyone has bought it.

The price should not be too high as to make people unable to afford thus
making you not get any or very few referrals or the product is too cheap
that your commission is too little such that you would have to make many
referrals to earn a decent income.

Does the affiliate program have one –tier or several tiers The more
tiers the program has and ability to earn residual income the better.

Do you have to pay or purchase anything to join the program Purchasing
may be fine for you to know the product but paying to join isn’t.

Ideally you should have your own website where you would post reviews and
links to your affiliate programs. Use your own domain name when setting
up the website to look professional. Since many of the visitors to your
website will be there for a few seconds and may never return again, it is
advisable that you capture their names and addresses so that you can further
enlighten them on your programs and offers. This could be mainly through
a regular ezine or an automated autoresponder ecourse.

Provide a means for prospects to contact you in case of any queries and
reply promptly and courteously. Promote your website constantly and track
your affiliate statistics regularly to gauge your performance. Ensure your
links and banners are working and your affiliate ID is correct in all your
links. Use text links more than banners as the latter are less effective
nowadays due to their proliferation and distractive nature.

About the Author
Dhiraj Bhikoo is a successful internet marketer.He helps people retire faster
by building a free search engine friendly website for top search engine
rankings http://www.workathomeopportunityformoms.com